Yes, Major Record Labels Are Keeping Nearly All The Money They Get From Spotify, Rather Than Giving It To Artists

from the who-are-you-blaming-now? dept

A small group of very vocal musicians has decided that the new target of their anger, after attacking cyberlockers, search engines and torrent sites, should be legal, authorized streaming services. They've decided that the payouts from these services are simply too low, even though almost none of these services are anywhere close to profitable, and most are handing out the vast majority of their revenue to copyright holders. The complaints are often nonsensical. Way back in 2012, we noted that the target of these musicians' anger appeared to be misplaced, as the CEO of Merlin (which represents a ton of indie labels) admitted that the real problem was that Spotify paid lots of money to labels and it was the labels not giving that money to the artists. Yet, rather than blaming their own labels (or their own contracts), these artists lashed out at Spotify and other streaming services. Just a few months ago, we covered this issue again, with even Bono admitting that the real problem was the lack of transparency from the labels.

And, it appears, there's a decent reason why those labels haven't been eager to be transparent: because they're keeping most of the money. The Music Business Worldwide site has the details on a new report put together by Ernst & Young with the French record label trade group SNEP, concerning where the money from streaming services Deezer and Spotify ends up. Spoiler alert: it's not with the artists. Here's the overall share of the 9.99 Euros that people pay for a premium account on these services: As you can see, the labels get the lion's share, with songwriters/publishers splitting 10% and the performers getting less than 7%. And, if you look at the specifics of the actual post-tax payout, you can see the contrast more starkly: The labels end up with nearly 75% of the total payout, with actual artists and songwriters left with the scraps.

Of course, since this project was paid for by SNEP, which represents the major labels, it then tries to spin this as being not only perfectly fair, but a good thing for the artists themselves. What, you say? How can that be? The report claims that 95% of that money that goes to the labels goes to cover all of the "expenses" those poor poor labels have to endure to record and... um... upload(?) the actual music. Sure, in the past, it may have been reasonable for the labels to take on large fees for distribution -- but that's when it meant manufacturing tons of plastic and vinyl and then shipping it to thousands of record stores around the globe. In this case, there's no manufacturing, and distribution is an "upload" button. Sure, there are some marketing costs, but the numbers ring pretty hollow (especially for many of the artists for whom the labels do little to no marketing).

So, again, rather than blaming these streaming services, it appears that perhaps they should be discussing things with the labels.

Filed Under: artists, contracts, copyright, distribution, music, record labels, revenue, streaming
Companies: deezer, snep, spotify

DailyDirt: Catchy Music Breakdown

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It can be annoying when you can't get a song out of your head, but there are some strategies for doing so. Apparently, working on some puzzles can help by engaging your working memory and shutting out the "Shake It Off" lyrics. These earworms have a tendency to come back (and even invade our visual memes), but if you recognize that these songs are all constructed in a similar way, maybe you can fend them off. Here are just some examples.

• Maybe you've heard that joke "What do you get when you play country music backwards?" A bunch of country music songs are about the same topics, but they also sound a lot alike. [url]
• Before anyone posts this Youtube link in the comments, yes, there are a lot of pop songs that rely on just 4 chords. Axis of Awesome demonstrates this brilliantly. [url]
• Chilly Gonzales explains why Taylor Swift's songs are so catchy. Perhaps you need to take some Swiftamine to deal with these earworms. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: axis of awesome, country music, earworms, memes, music, swiftamine, taylor swift

Get Ready For Classic Songs Of The 50s & 60s To Disappear From Internet Streaming Thanks To Copyright Lawsuits

from the bye-bye-1960s-classics dept

Say goodbye to the musical hits of the 50s and 60s, if you like that sort of thing and listen via online services. Chances are they may start to disappear, as the places where you now get your streaming music realize they need to protect themselves against a possible massive liability. As we've covered for some time, there have been a few lawsuits filed recently over the licensing status of pre-1972 sound recordings. There's a lot of history here, but a short explanation is that in 1909, when Congress redid copyright law, it didn't think that sound recordings (then a relatively new concept) were copyrightable subject matter. Of course, in the years following that, as the "music business" turned into the "recording industry" pressure mounted by that industry led to a bunch of state regulations and common law creating copyright or copyright-like rights for sound recordings.

With the 1976 Copyright Act, rather than "federalizing" all sound recording copyrights, Congress basically left all pre-1972 recordings under those state laws, while effectively wiping out those laws for everything else. Since then, all copyright is under federal copyright law, but old sound recordings are still subject to those state laws. But those state laws were somewhat limited -- and at no point did anyone seriously believe that there was any sort of public performance licensing required for those recordings. Well, not until a few years ago, when some big record labels started searching under the couch cushions for other ways to squeeze money out of online services. They'd already convinced Congress to force internet streaming sites to pay compulsory performance royalties (at insanely high rates), even though radio doesn't have to pay those.

But that wasn't enough. So, they started to focus on those pre-1972 recordings and said that while those aren't subject to the compulsory rates, perhaps they could hold them hostage and force the streaming sites to pay insane amounts for them. The streaming sites, rightfully, pointed out that none of those state laws really had a public performance right as a part of it, and thus there was no licensing required to perform those works and... eventually the lawsuits began.

Late last year, there was a series of separate but similar rulings in courts in California and New York that more or less upturned decades of copyright consensus about what rights were afforded to pre-1972 recordings.

And now additional lawsuits are starting to show up -- and you can expect a lot more of them. A holding company called Zenbu Magazines has sued Apple's Beats Music along with Google, Songza, Slacker, Rdio, Sony and Grooveshark using the same basic template as those earlier lawsuits. Zenbu claims to hold the copyrights for recordings by the Flying Burrito Brothers, Hot Tuna and New Riders of the Purple Sage. And it wants to get paid. Big time.

In fact, Zenbu is looking to make this a class action lawsuit, meaning that the holders of lots of other copyrights on pre-1972 recordings may pile on as well -- and the potential liability facing all of these streaming services could quickly grow to astronomical numbers.

Given that, it seems quite likely that at least some, if not all, of these services are going to quickly realize that their best move is to simply remove all pre-1972 recordings from their catalog. History for music may end in 1972 thanks to these self-defeating lawsuits from copyright holders desperate to squeeze extra money out of these services. It's hard to see how that benefits culture in the slightest.

Filed Under: classic rock, copyright, flying burrito brothers, hot tuna, music, new riders of the purple sage, oldies, pre-1972, pre-1972 sound recordings
Companies: apple, google, grooveshark, rdio, slacker, songza, sony, zenbu magazines

Musicians Union Threatens To Expel Composer If He Doesn't Pay Fine For Unapproved Videogame Work

from the so,-who-protects-members-from-their-representatives? dept

Last summer, the American Federation of Musicians hit videogame composer Austin Wintory (Monaco, Journey) with a $50,000 fine for working on The Banner Saga in violation of its (nonexistent) game music contract. Thanks to the union's own stubbornness and greed, none of its members were allowed to compose music for videogames. A contract put together in 2012 without the input of AFM's members was so skewed towards the union that no videogame producers were willing to agree to it. (It wasn't until 2014 that Microsoft agreed to the terms of AFM's revamped contract. It remains the sole company to do so.)

When Wintry worked on the game without its permission, AFM got angry and threw its toys out of the crib. Its own Local 47 (Los Angeles) took issue with the union's BS and issued a resolution supporting Wintory in October. Perhaps due to this internal pressure, the AFM reduced Wintory's fine to $2,500. Now, it's threatening to expel Wintory because he hasn't paid up.

A long-running dispute between video game composer Austin Wintory and his union, the American Federation of Musicians, has come to a head this week: Variety reports that Wintory has refused to pay a $2,500 fine imposed by the AFM for his non-union work as a composer on The Banner Saga.

The union has threatened to expel him if he doesn't pay up by January 19th. Wintory is investigating his legal options to combat such a decision, and has offered to write a $2,500 check to the L.A.-based Education Through Music charity in lieu of paying the union fine.

Wintory is weighing his options. A good one would seem to be telling AFM where to stick its toys (and contracts) and ditching the union altogether. But that can have an adverse effect on finding work in other union-heavy industries, like movies and regular, old non-videogame music. These entities tend to require the hiring of union members, so the lack of an AFM card could keep Wintory from being hired should he choose to branch out.

Other AFM members have worked around the union's stupid videogame contract by recording in Nashville (Tennessee is a right-to-work state) or overseas. Wintory incensed his "representatives" by ditching Los Angeles -- an area it firmly controls -- in favor of London, which was cheaper, didn't hit the game's producer for additional "future use" fees and didn't force anyone to adhere to a one-sided contract. So, it's still out to get its pound of flesh in hopes of discouraging other members from bypassing the contract they were never given the chance to agree to.

In true AFM fashion, it is implementing another contract and letting its members know the specifics after the fact.

Meanwhile, the Recording Musicians Association (RMA), the “player conference” within the AFM that represents many studio musicians, announced over the weekend that the union had concluded negotiations with the AMPTP on a new multiyear contract for recording TV and film scores.

Details of the pact, however, were being kept under wraps Sunday. Musicians are expected to be informed of the details late Monday during meetings of the RMA and Local 47 membership.

So, who's working for who? Unions are supposed to represent their members. That's why members pay fees. AFM seems to genuinely have no concern about the well-being of its artists. (It doesn't care much for the general public either.) It fines them when they seek to do work they've been locked out of by a contract they never wanted and it keeps its negotiations with other entities secret until the ink has dried on all the signatures -- none of which belong to the members supposedly being "represented."

Filed Under: austin wintory, music, unions, video games
Companies: afm, american federation of musicians

Labels Barely Release 1964 Dylan, Beach Boys Archive Materials Solely To Get Extended Copyrights

from the promoting-the-progress! dept

Two years ago we wrote about the very odd release, by Sony, of just 100 copies of a set of previously unreleased Bob Dylan tracks. Why so few? Well, Sony sort of revealed the secret in the name of the title. See if you can spot it: Yup. The release had absolutely nothing to do with actually getting the works out to fans, and absolutely everything to do with copyright. You see, back in 2011, despite having absolutely no economic rationale for doing so, the EU retroactively extended copyright on music from 50 years to 70 years. However, there was a tiny catch: there was a "use it or lose it" provision in the law, saying that the music had to have been "released" to qualify for that 20 year extension. Thus, Sony realized with Dylan that it had to "release" (and I use the term loosely) some of its old recordings that had never been officially released, or it would lose the copyright on them.

The other major labels have been doing the same. Last year, there was a series of releases of 1963 music, including more from Dylan, along with some previously unreleased Beatles tunes (at least those were somewhat more widely available). This year, we're getting a new crop of barely released 1964 songs including (yet again) more from Dylan, along with some from the Beach Boys as well (and some expect more Beatles tunes as well).

The Beach Boys released two copyright extension sets this week, both as downloads. The first, “Keep an Eye on Summer: The Beach Boys Sessions 1964,” is a collection of session outtakes, including working versions and remixes of “Fun Fun Fun,” “Don’t Worry Baby,” “I Get Around” and other hits, as well as live BBC recordings. The second, “The Beach Boys Live in Sacramento 1964,” includes two full concert performances.

A spokeswoman for Universal said that the label has “no current plans” for a Beatles release, but last year Universal and the Beatles’ label, Apple, kept plans under wraps until just before “The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963” turned up on iTunes. The group’s unreleased 1964 recordings include studio outtakes from the “Hard Day’s Night” and “Beatles for Sale” albums, as well as several BBC appearances and soundboard tapes of the band’s concerts in Paris, Melbourne, Adelaide, Vancouver, Philadelphia and several other cities.

At least when they're released on iTunes, people can get them, unlike the very limited CD releases some have chosen. But, either way, this music isn't being released for any legitimate reason. They're solely being "released" to keep them out of the public domain. It's difficult to see how that has anything to do with furthering the interests of the public and culture. And it certainly highlights how ridiculous the copyright extension effort from 2011 was in the first place. It doesn't serve the public in the slightest, but it has offered up a chance for record labels to keep works out of the public domain for as long as possible.

Filed Under: beach boys, beatles, bob dylan, copyright, copyright extension, copyright term extension, eu, music
Companies: sony, universal music

If You're Going To Complain About Spotify Payments, At Least Understand A Little Economics First

from the fighting-against-the-future dept

In discussions of Taylor Swift pulling her music from Spotify because the service wouldn't make the music available solely to paying subscribers, which pays higher royalty rates, and Aloe Blacc's Wired op-ed calling for higher royalties for songwriters from streaming services (but see: Spirit Animal frontman Steve Cooper's thoughtful piece in Business Insider on "why Spotify is not the enemy"), there are a few important economic realities being ignored.

Spotify currently pays about 70% of its revenue to rightsholders.  That typically goes to middlemen — publishers for the musical work copyright, who then pay a portion to the songwriters, and record labels for the sound recording copyright, who then pay a portion to the musicians.

VC David Pakman (who testified in November 2012 before the House Judiciary IP Subcommittee about why the current music licensing scheme deters VC investment in new music services) recently analyzed data from middlemen in a few industries and found that many legacy middlemen are not earning the large share they take from creators in the digital age.  Record labels, for example, contributed a lot more value when they coordinated and financed studio time (which can now be done with a basic computer and Internet connection, and possibly a Kickstarter campaign), manufacturing records and CDs and got them to retailers (which is no longer the primary way of selling music), and marketing (which can be done online with free services).  Now, in the digital age, many of these services are no longer needed or performed.

In remarks last week at the Web Summit Conference in Dublin, Bono explained that rather than fighting against streaming, artists should be fighting for transparency:

Spotify is giving up 70% of all their revenues to rights owners.  But it's just that people don't know where the money is going because the record labels haven't been transparent.

The rightsholder middlemen pay a far smaller share to creators than the substantial majority that the services pay, which depends on whether labels have direct deals with services, a digital aggregator/distributor, or whether artists own their rights, and on artists' contracts with their label, as explained in Future of Music Coalition's helpful infographics on how the money flows.

And yet artists appear to often blame the Internet services rather than the publishers and labels.  One potential reason for this is that the artists aren't actually making the decisions; the publishers and labels are, because they own the rights and have the bargaining power.  But often it's those contracts that are the reason they're not getting paid enough, not the services.

Pakman's data has Spotify currently paying about 70%.  But how much should they pay?  What is the right amount?  100%?  More than 100%?

Lost in many of these discussions is the reality that music sales and streams are not the only way to make money anymore.  Streaming services help artists find fans, which enables them to generate sales of goods, like concert ticket sales and other scarce resources.

Another important point is that consumers are going to spend different amounts on music.  Many of them are happy to spend nothing on recorded music, and it's better for that to happen through ad-supported streaming sites like Spotify than through piracy.  (For some more thoughts on the economic theory behind this, including demand elasticity and whether an infringement is a lost sale, see this post.)

Rightsholders may have delayed the existence of services like Spotify, and may still want them to not exist (which would occur if they were required to pay out more than they take in).  But consumers want services like Spotify.  And they use them.  About 40% of Spotify's more than 40 million users were listening to Taylor Swift before she pulled her music, which some estimates said comes out to $84,000 a week.

Services like Spotify aren't just competing against digital sales on services like iTunes.  (Although in Europe, where Spotify launched first, Spotify is now generating more royalties for artists than iTunes, which comports with recent research finding that global streaming revenue will soon surpass physical sales.)  As DisCo has said in many posts (see, e.g., 1, 2, 3):  Giving consumers lawful affordable options for listening to what they want when they want it in a convenient format reduces piracy.

Reposted from the Disruptive Competition Project

Filed Under: aloe blacc, business models, economics, music, streaming, taylor swift
Companies: spotify

Hooray For Licenses! Update Strips 17 Songs From Steam Users' Purchased Copies Of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

from the like-using-a-time-machine-to-raid-a-CD-collection dept

Part One Billion in "You Don't Own What You Pay For," the ongoing saga in which paying customers purchasing "licenses" find themselves in possession of products inferior to those purchased physically or, worse, to those never purchased at all (i.e., "pirates").

You might have noticed Steam downloading a sizeable update for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas over the weekend and wondered what that was about. A fancy secret tying into GTA V's return to the west coast, perhaps? Not quite. The patch added support for XInput controllers like the Xbox 360 pad, which is nice, but also removed seventeen songs from various radio stations. No more angsting out and gunning it across Gant Bridge in the wrong lane listening to Killing in the Name, I'm afraid.

There's no such thing as a perpetual or "forever" license, not when it comes to content. RockstarNexus has the full list, which seems to include the same 17 songs removed from the iOS versions prior to release. IPhone/iPad users will know these songs are missing going in. But those who purchased the game through Steam are only finding this out after the fact. Rockstar released no patch notes and any account set to auto-update went ahead and stripped content right out of purchasers' games.

It's not like Rockstar didn't have options. It has dealt with music licensing issues before, but never in a way that has affected previously purchased games.

When music rights expired for some songs in GTA: Vice City, Rockstar left them in for folks who already owned it then made a separate version without them for new purchasers. It's pretty unpleasant that they didn't do the same here too.

This would have been the right way to handle this. Bundling in content removal with various bug fixes and notifying no one ahead of time is terrible way to treat paying customers. Add to that the fact that the pushed update seems to be responsible for a number of deleted/bricked saves, and you've got a bit of a PR problem on your hands.

But underneath it all lies the absurdity of licensing. Rockstar licensed songs from labels only to see them expire more quickly than the game's marketability. This put it in the position of having to retroactively alter its game, and it was those who purchased nothing more tangible than a license who were negatively affected. Sure, Rockstar will never be able to "own" the recordings used in its game, but it seems like purchasers should be able to keep their purchased goods intact, even if the purchased item is nothing more than ones and zeros scattered across a variety of storage devices.

Filed Under: copyright, grand theft auto, licenses, music, ownership, removals, you don't own what you pay for
Companies: rockstar

Once Again: The Sky Is Rising When It Comes To Creative Output

from the why-so-much-doom-and-gloom? dept

A few years ago, we released our Sky is Rising report, looking at the state of the global entertainment industry, in which we found that, contrary to the story of gloom and doom that was being spread by some special interests, the real story was quite exciting. What we found when we looked at the actual numbers was that we are in a true renaissance of creativity, with massively more content -- video, movies, books, music and video games -- being produced these days than ever before. Perhaps more importantly, we saw that the amount of money being spent on these things also continued to increase -- though it didn't always flow through the same channels as in the past. This combination of factors -- more content producers, many new channels -- often led some people to insist that the industry was collapsing, rather than the truth, that it was growing rapidly, just in more distributed ways. That represented certain challenges for many people in the creative industries -- but from a public policy standpoint, it certainly suggested that things were pretty good -- not deathly bad, as was often implied. Last year, we came out with a follow up report that focused on Europe -- noting a similar pattern in various European countries, though with some countries facing unique and interesting challenges. However, one interesting aspect of that report was that we saw a stronger pattern of success in those areas where innovation was allowed to thrive and flourish, rather than be held back.

Today we're launching the third report in this series, The Sky is Rising, 2014 Edition, focused on the United States in particular. And, once again, we see the same basic story. Lots of growth. Tons more content being produced. Lots of stories of new business models and artists connecting with their fans in new and unique ways. We're seeing new markets develop, along with new tools to help those markets. But the key story is the same as always: there is more content being produced today than ever before, and it's helped along by innovative technology, as the two often go hand in hand. More content than ever before is being produced, and content creators have more new and powerful ways to create, to distribute, to build a fan base, to connect and to build a business model -- and that's quite exciting.

At the same time, there's a push underway to reform our copyright laws -- something that we agree needs reform. And, yet, strangely, much of the rhetoric around reform has been based on the idea that the content world is suffering, or that there's some sort of "Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley" battle going on. The actual evidence suggests no such thing at all. Rather, it suggests that when innovation is allowed to flourish nearly everyone benefits. More content creators are able to do much more and create much more content. More fans are able to experience and consume much more content while supporting content creators in new and unique ways. From a public policy standpoint, it seems like things have been trending in the right way for a long time. If there's to be any sort of public policy change it should be to try to speed up that process, rather than to slow it down.

You can read the full report below. Once again, as with the previous editions of this report, we'd like to thank CCIA for sponsoring and publishing the paper.

Filed Under: books, copyright, copyright reform, culture, film, innovation, movies, music, sky is rising, tv, video, video games

'Piracy' That Creates Amazing New Music

from the here-we-go-again dept

More than five years ago we first wrote about Kutiman, an Israeli musician who created an album of incredible new music simply by editing together a bunch of unrelated YouTube clips. The end result is... astounding. I still listen to it frequently. In some ways this is a "mashup" or a "remix" but it's unlike most that you've heard. Many remixes take a known recorded song and change it around or take a few different recorded songs and mix them all together. Those can be amazing too. I've found that by artists like Girl Talk or D.VELOPED often create music that I, personally, find to be more enjoyable than the originals. But Kutiman is different, and takes it to a new level by taking totally random bits of music -- often amateurs messing around -- on YouTube, and converting them into astoundingly complex and beautiful songs.

We've highlighted some of the examples in the past, but here are two examples from that first album, of taking a random video that most wouldn't consider to be anything all that special and turning into a part of an amazing project. We'll start with taking a simple kid playing a scale on a trumpet which becomes integral to an entire (great) funk song. Here's the trumpet bit: And here's the full song: Or how about this basic trombone solo becoming such a haunting and compelling part of this dub reggae song (trombone comes in at 42 seconds). Here's the trombone: And here's the full song: Kutiman is back again with a new track from a follow up album of songs clipped together from YouTube (the full album is expected to be released soon), and once again, it's quite amazing: And yet, some might argue that this is all nothing more than "piracy" or "infringement." Others may argue that this is not "real" music because it's just "remixing." I have a hard time taking any of those arguments seriously. Here is someone using those pieces as instruments to create a beautiful new work. It takes nothing away from the old work.

Unfortunately, however, there's already been some (now resolved) controversy with this new work. One of the cello players, Deryn Cullen, featured in this work apparently complained to Kutiman. It's this video in which she plays Bach's Prelude from Cello Suite no 2 in d minor. She apparently was initially upset and felt that Kutiman should have first asked permission to use her performance. After they talked it over, and she understood the nature of the project (and, perhaps, because she saw how much positive attention it was getting), she agreed that she was happy to be a part of it. It's good that they were able to have a discussion on this and come to a mutual appreciation -- but it's yet another unfortunate situation that one comes to when we live in a world of "permission culture," where some people feel that you should always get permission first. And to sort of prove how silly this is, one need only ask whether or not Cullen received permission from the estate of Johann Sebastian Bach before performing his piece.

I'm happy it worked out in the end, but imagine if every time someone wanted to create new music they had to get permission from everyone up and down the chain whose work played a part? What's happening here, with Kutiman, is so blatantly obviously brilliantly creative, new and original -- and yet, under our broken copyright laws it might be deemed "infringing" by some, "derivative" by others, and illegal by many. Isn't that a problem? Isn't the idea behind copyright law to encourage new and beautiful works like these? Adding the friction and tollbooth of "permission culture" to the process would make this kind of artwork impossible, and that would be a loss to everyone.

Filed Under: creation, creativity, culture, kutiman, mashup, music, piracy, remix, youtube

Apple Finally Allows iPhone-Ers To Nix That U2 Album They Never Wanted From Their Phones

from the me-three dept

In the wake of the somewhat confusing move by mega-band U2 to release their latest album for free on iTunes, we noted the comments from frontman Bono, who rushed to decry the concept of free for music and who insisted that because he was paid it didn't really count as free. These comments must have been especially confusing for those that suddenly found the band's album in their iTunes cloud account, despite never having requested or wanted it there. Indeed, given some of the comments reacting to the promotional move, it seems the problem with free might not be on the content producer's side, but on the consumer's instead.

If you’re trying to convince me that the stuff I store in my cloud is safe, don’t open up my cloud without permission. It’s easy to imagine Apple’s thinking here: What’s better than a free gift? A free gift that you don’t have to go get! But a gift on my doorstep is one thing. A gift that you left in my house, after letting yourself in, is something different.

Indeed, and it's not difficult to understand why some reacted less than favorably to the free album. First, despite Bono's insistence to the contrary, this was indeed the use of the concept of free as a promotional tool. Perhaps not for U2 as much as Apple, but that's what it was nevertheless. The problem wasn't that the album was free, but that the album appeared unbidden in the repository for a service that feels quite personal to the consumer. These were our cloud accounts that Apple invaded to leave their free stuff. You know what it's called when someone leaves you something you didn't want for free in your domain? It's called litter. And, in this case, it was litter that you couldn't even clean up. Just browse through a few of the reactions on the site WhoIsU2.com to get a sense:















And, just like that, Apple is walking back the "gift" by actually writing some code to delete the "gift," which, until that happened, was unremovable (though you could hide it).

It should take a couple steps, but it shouldn’t be that difficult. Head over to this page, which Apple put up this morning. Now you can make your collection Bono-free, or just “Songs of Innocence”-free, or whatever. The only catch appears to be that if you decide you do want your new free U2 album, you’ve only got a month to change your mind: After October 13, the only way to get it from iTunes will be by actually spending money.

Think about this for a second. For the first time in history, it seems, someone had to write some code to deliberately remove free music that was forced upon people. Like it was malware. How many people expected the digital music revolution to end up here?

Look, it's a great thing to see musicians and distributors continue to experiment with this sort of thing, but it's also important that lessons be learned as they do so. Today's lesson is that the internet is a back-and-forth, not simply a distribution channel that can be used to force products into the consumer's space. Perhaps next time they'll get this a bit more right.

Filed Under: deleting, free, free music, music, u2
Companies: apple